Fool
by skysedge
Summary: What is this feeling? [Post-Vault spoilers]


pre style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px; white-space: normal; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web Regular', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Helvetica Neue', 'BBAlpha Sans', 'S60 Sans', Arial, sans-serif; color: #444444; font-size: 15px;"I go alone. It is not the first time I have made this journey, I come as often as possible, finding myself here before I realise where I am going. There is a strange sort of comfort in visiting a grave or perhaps it is just in being alone with my thoughts. br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /The shield is as I left it. His shield. A grisly gift from a family that I am sure I have ruined through my recklessness. It still shines, even now, the light of the snow flaring through the unavoidable tear in the metal. The rim of the breach is stained crimson with his blood. Someone has made a valiant effort to clean it but the metal itself is soiled, stubbornly refusing to be anything less than honest. The coppery residue once ran through a heart much the style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /I touch one fingertip to the painful memento and believe I can feel the sharp mountain winds echoing through my own chest. A visceral wrench. A violating thrust, still just an echo of what I should have felt that day. What he had felt in my style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /Fool. Faultless. br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /What is this feeling? br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /It is not grief. If I have learnt anything since arriving in Foundation it is how to grieve. I have always tried to keep my own pain contained, saving it for empty inn rooms and open windows that allow me to ask the sky WHY. Why must every victory be followed with an overwhelming defeat? What sort of a world would break Alphinaud's idealist spirits and allow Tataru to cry? br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /I had always believed that I fight to change such a world. My resolve has been shaking. With each part of my heart I lose, I fear it is to be replaced with bitterness. Blood answered with blood. Such it has always been, and so it shall style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /I do not want to believe such a fatalistic statement. I am trying. He had believed in peace, had he not? Perhaps he is shouting for me now, trying to rally me as style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /Shout louder, friend. The winds are fiercer since We lost style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /Not grief, then. If it were, it would not sting so strangely. Instead if what, how? I feel like a sword without a hilt, a bow without a string. Useless, not fit for purpose, unable to remember how I used to shine. br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /Incomplete. I have lost a part of me that I had not realised was vital until it was removed, something as natural and irreplaceable as the rhythm of breathing. br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /I watch my own face reflected in the metal and try a smile. It is pitiful compared to his. His voice had been strong, his words infinitely warm. His hand had filled the space between my own, hands that have always been grasping for something just outside of my style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /The winds shriek through the valley below. If he called for me now, would I go? The answer is easy. If leaping into the abyss before me could heal even a fraction if the hurt he bore for me, I would. And it is not guilt, not regret, not at the core of my mind as I let tears freeze on my style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /For the first time I know something so completely that it takes my breath. It is as if this is something I had known all along, a song from before birth, a remnant of the heavens. br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /I know love. br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /Too late. br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /Fool. br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /I know this feeling. And I know my heart shall forever bear the image of a sundered shield, bleeding outwards from the absence within./pre 


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